Certified Box-Office Killer Guardians of the Galaxy Is the First Marvel Movie to Be Written by a Woman

If the $94 million box-office haul is any indication, there's a good chance you're among the many people who saw Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend. I am. I'm not much for superhero movies—one too many predictable Avengers fight scenes has put me off them recently. But, in addition to the fact that Chris Pratt's darling-guy press tour hypnotized me into wanting to see whatever he's in, I suspected that something might be different about Guardians.

I was right. Guardians is legitimately funny—I broke my personal laughing-during-comic-book movies record, which was held for years by the original Iron Man. I also broke my personal tearing-up-during-comic-book-movies record, which had stood at...zero. It's never happened. But Guardians is a special movie—it feels both different than anything in the genre I've watched as an adult and a lot like the kind of films that made me really happy as a kid.

All of this freshness makes perfect sense when you consider that Guardians wasn't written by a sci-fi household name who knows how to phone in all the necessary elements—dark backstory, cool suit, space combat, blah blah, call me when my check comes in and the sequel gets greenlit. No: It's the work of a new screenwriter taking a crack at the superhero genre for the first time. And that screenwriter, Nicole Perlman, also happens to be the first woman to ever write a Marvel movie.

That's Perlman above, at the right-hand end of a gaggle of Comic-Con Guardians diehards. She's 33, a lifelong sci-fi geek, and an alum of a special Marvel screenwriting program designed to turn its legion volumes of literature into big screen hits.

After years of writing and rewriting the script, Perlman is now the writer behind one of the year's most successful films. And that means she'll become one of the most in-demand people in the world of major-budget movies starting...now. Her projects in development include a film based on the Challenger shuttle tragedy—as well as Marvel's planned Black Widow picture, which will focus on Scarlett Johansson's Avengers universe alter ego. (Speaking of Johansson, let's note that the top two movies at the box office this weekend were Guardians, an action movie written by a woman, and Lucy, an action movie top-lined by one.) UPDATE: Perlman is not developing Black Widow, her reps say—that was just a rumor.

And yes, if you're wondering: The women in Guardians, played by Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan, feel much more human than women usually do in these movies. (I have often wondered if Iron Man's Pepper Potts actually enjoys listening to Tony Stark talk that much, or if she's just constantly on Ambien.) In Perlman's hands, Saldana's Gamora is steely but never automatically cold. And Gillan's Nebula, who only has a small amount of screen time, still gets her ruthless persona across without becoming a forgettable thug.

All of this is not to say Perlman is only good with female characters—her funny dialogue makes all the guys seem more human than superheroes usually do (like, you could imagine hanging out with them and not being bored to tears), and she's got quite a flair for raccoon sarcasm as well. You'll see what I mean when you watch. I'll be over here celebrating this milestone for Hollywood gender parity and looking forward to movies coming out of, to borrow some dramatic superhero talk, a better world.